Whispers in the Dark
by Aphraelsan
Summary: Molly stood where he'd put her, an inscrutable look on her face. "Sherlock Holmes, you were made for more than this. There have been more...more than enough heroic deaths today." Yesterday, Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper were training to be Jedi Knights alongside Ben Solo. That was yesterday. Star Wars AU with slow-burn Sherlolly.
1. Dark Side of the Moon

_Many thanks to my awesome beta Lilsherlockian1975, who is seriously amazing and so kind._

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Victor Trevor, human, Jedi Knight and co-leader of the Yavin academy while Master Skywalker was away, was deeply unimpressed with his soup. He picked up his spoon and allowed the thick liquid to fall back into the bowl with a wet "plop" that sounded hideous. He looked up as Soo Lin Yao, his Togruta counterpart, sat gracefully across from him, long white and black headtails curving around her red face.

"Lin, we seriously need to talk to Master Skywalker about this whole "all members must learn to do all tasks" nonsense. I know we're teaching the Padawans the value of hard work and all, but let's leave the cooking to those of us who can't burn water."

"It can't be that bad, Victor. And look, they seem so proud of themselves." She nodded to the front of the hall, where Henry Knight and Dorsk 88 spooned soup eagerly into bowls as padawan learners filed slowly into the academy from the various areas of the temple and jungle where they had been studying.

"Maybe. Could we at least change the rotation so The Ghost cooks tomorrow? She's a bit creepy, but she makes a mean curry." He spooned soup quickly into his mouth, the better not to taste it. He swallowed and pulled a face. "Ugh, the aftertaste is really what makes this atrocious. What is that?"

Soo Lin ignored him. "Don't call her creepy! I think she's actually quite sweet. Certainly more pleasant than your protege. Didn't he make Anthea cry yesterday?"

Vic laughed. "He did. Told her that her parents are splitting up. Something about how the clothing and cred stick her father sent on the last cargo run are down to him feeling guilty about his affair. She was heartbroken."

"I'm pleased to see you find it so amusing, Victor."

"Oh, not like that. I did send off Sherlock to meditate at the rock. It's not exactly the path of the Jedi to go around provoking people. But you should have seen his face after Anthea ran off. He honestly had absolutely no idea why she was upset."

"I'm sure you were looking."

"What are you implying, Lin?"

Soo Lin smiled softly. She and Victor Trevor had been friends for many years. They had been some of the first Jedi trained by Luke Skywalker in his new academy. Soo Lin had trained as a healer and Consul and Victor a Guardian and duelist, yet somehow they had always complimented each other well. "You know what I'm implying, Victor. And I think it'd be good for you."

"Wh- he… He's a padawan, Lin!"

"Not for long. At least not if he holds his temper in check."

Both were silent for a moment, their thoughts turning in the same direction. With forced casualness, Soo Lin said, "Speaking of tempers, have you seen Ben at all today?"

oOo

Deep in the Yavin jungle, Sherlock Holmes' eyes snapped open. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

oOo

The poison spread quickly. Victor heard it before he felt it - a rattling, gasping choking sound from the table next to his that almost immediately turned into a chorus. All around him, students began clutching throats and retching.

He felt it then, something paralytic running through his veins, swelling his tongue, choking him. He began to cough desperately.

"Con- Concentrate Victor!" he heard Soo Lin gasp. He looked up to see her closing her eyes, assuming a meditative pose.

 _Right. I'm a damned Jedi._ Victor closed his own eyes, tried desperately to ignore his rapidly diminishing oxygen, and focused. He reached out with the Force, imagined it pumping through his blood, pushing out the toxin, cleansing him. He took a deep, shaky breath. He could feel the poison lurking in his limbs, weakening him, but he held it at bay.

He snapped his eyes open and leapt to his feet, quickly taking in Soo Lin doing the same. He followed her gaze to a figure silhouetted in the bright light of the entrance, a red lightsaber in hand. Victor took his own lightsaber from the table behind him and ignited it. The yellow blade flickered to life and he thanked the Force he'd been training with it this morning. Soo Lin's would be in her quarters upstairs.

Padawans lay all around them, some concentrating to remove the poison as he had done, some roiling on the ground. Some were deathly still. Victor felt his hands shake and tried very hard not to think about about which of his friends and students were on the ground. The academy never ate all at the same time, none of the rooms of the ancient Massassi temple they used as an academy were large enough for the three dozen Jedi to gather at the same time. He hadn't paid the slightest attention to who was eating, had no idea who was dead and dying and _betrayed._ He had failed utterly.

Soo Lin's right hand slid into his left. "Peace, my friend. Trust in the Force."

"Go, Lin. Comm for help. Run!" She squeezed his hand quickly and was gone. He took a breath, found his center, then stepped forward, shouting, "Ben Solo! You should've picked a day when Henry wasn't cooking. You might not have had to fight your betters."

The sixteen year old glared back at him, pushing dark hair out of his eyes. "I'll keep that in mind when I find my betters, Vic." Ben's lightsaber flickered red, casting strange shadows on his angry face. He must have made it himself; it certainly wasn't the standard blue Padawan blade he usually carried. He'd added a cross guard, presumably by refracting the energy from a force crystal. In different circumstances, Victor would've found the saber fascinating.

Ben circled closer. "You're looking a little peaky, Vic. Your tummy bothering y-" he stopped abruptly and brought his saber up as Victor attacked. They exchanged a dozen blows at lightning speed until Ben scored a glancing burn down Victor's arm from shoulder to elbow.

Victor cursed. He was twice the swordsman Ben was, but he was expending most of his energy just to avoid passing out. His limbs felt heavy, clumsy. _Time to stall._ He needed to give Lin and the others as much time as he could.

"Think about what you're doing, Ben. It's not too late to turn back. Your uncle will forgive you, you know he will."

Ben launched himself at Victor. "I am DONE taking orders from him! And from you!" His lightsaber a blur of color as he feinted low and then spun away from Victor's parry to swing his blade in a wide arc to the head.

Victor parried and retreated a few feet, panting. In his peripheral vision, he could see Henry and Dorsk moving, searching for something. _Lightsabers._ Neither had served breakfast armed, and thank the Force they hadn't eaten yet and were unharmed. If they weren't already armed, they weren't working for Ben.

Victor surged forward, swinging his yellow blade in a snapping lunge, then ducking Ben's riposte. He used his momentum to somersault and kick the boy's legs out from underneath him. Ben fell heavily, his saber flickering off.

Victor sprang to his feet, leaning over the boy with a lightsaber to his throat in a backhanded grip. Despite what the boy had done, he couldn't bring himself to kill Luke Skywalker's only nephew. "Yield! It's over, Ben."

The dark haired teen bared his teeth in a vicious grin. "You know what your problem is, Vic? You, and my uncle, all of you?!"

"Enlighten us."

"You underestimate me."

Victor registered the hiss of the lightsaber at the same moment he felt it in his chest. He stared at it in a moment that felt supremely unreal. Less than ten minutes ago, he'd been complaining about his soup to Lin, and now he was dying. He going to die. "No..." He fell to his knees as Ben scrambled up, mirroring him, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck and tugging the saber from his chest.

"I'm not sorry. I'm _not!_ " The teen glared at him through tears. "I'm not."

Victor Trevor slumped to the ground, his yellow lightsaber flickering off and rolling from his hand.

Henry Knight and Dorsk 88 stepped forward with scavenged lightsabers shaking in their hands to confront Ben Solo.

No one noticed a small hand dart out from under a table to snatch Victor's lightsaber from the ground.

oOo

Soo Lin Yao turned away from the Yavin academy's comm unit. Every channel she'd attempted to call for help on had been blocked. Someone above Ben Solo had orchestrated this attack and had clearly planned it well.

The Togruta began to scribble on the nearest paper she could reach as she heard quiet footsteps behind her.

She turned as a figure in black slowly removed a helmet.

Soo Lin sighed. "Liang. Big brother, I knew it would be you."

A low voice answered her. "My name is Zhi Zhu Ren now, little sister."

A lightsaber hummed to life in the deathly silence.

oOo

Sherlock Holmes ran through the jungle, lightsaber in his hand. His sense of unease had only grown as he'd gotten closer to the Jedi academy. Now that he was nearly there, he was frantic with the knowledge that something had happened. He could feel it permeating the Force, and he hesitated to name it.

 _Death. People he knew, possibly many of them, were dead. Victor maybe...no._

He had reached the outskirts of the academy grounds when he heard the sound of feet hitting the ground lightly behind him. He spun and ignited the saber in his hands, but saw only Molly Hooper behind him.

Molly was the only student at the academy other than himself to study the path of the Jedi Sentinel. Their skill sets were actually quite different, but both of them excelled at stealth and secrecy. Sherlock excelled in manipulating minds, reading thoughts, picking pockets, and generally talking himself into and out of situations; for Molly, remaining unnoticed was as natural as breathing. She could loosen the joints in her body to fit in spaces that humans shouldn't, or hide in plain sight. She had an unusual talent for hiding her essence in the force, making it nearly impossible for other Jedi to sense her. It shouldn't have surprised Sherlock that Molly Hooper would escape from whatever was happening at the academy.

She'd clearly been moving through the trees. Her large brown eyes were panicky; long cinnamon hair pulled loose from its plait on one side of her head. Her outer robe was missing and her clothing disheveled. He could detect a stain on the sleeve of her tunic that could only be blood.

"Oh Sherlock, thank the Force. I was coming to find you. He's killing them. They're killing them all. We have to run!" Molly's words rushed out of her, higher than her normal voice and tinged with hysteria.

"It's Ben Solo, isn't it?"

She nodded solemnly.

"I knew it!" He turned from her and started towards the academy. "I knew he would turn, the pompous little arse. I'm going to kill him. Maybe it's not too late for - for everyone."

The slim woman grabbed his arm with both hands, using his momentum to turn him. "You don't understand. Ben's not-"

His fear crystallized into rage in a moment. "You don't understand. You left them! You ran away and abandoned them. You may be a coward, Hooper, but I am not one."

Even as he said the words, he knew they were unfair. Molly was atrocious with a lightsaber and was only one person. But he was angry and she was here. He was already walking away from her.

"He's not alone, Sherlock. There are stormtroopers and at least two other Sith. Probably more, but I ran away too fast to be sure." He could hear the bitterness in her voice.

He stood for a moment, calculating the odds. Without turning he said, "I understand. I… I am sorry, Molly Hooper. For everything."

Sherlock Holmes ignited his lightsaber and began walking towards the Jedi academy.

The last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was the sound of blaster fire.

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* * *

 _Thanks for reading!_

 _This will be a story in 4-5 parts, with a second story to follow._

 _Extra explanatory bits about Star Wars stuff:_

 _There are 3 basic branches of Jedi types. Jedi Sentinels (Sherlock and Molly) are the sneaky spy types, and generally most tempted by dark side as they have to make tricky decisions (because spy stuff)._

 _Skywalker's academy was on Yavin 4 (home of the Rebel base in A New Hope) in the Legends universe, and I haven't seen anything in the new cannon about it being set anywhere else. I've always really enjoyed it as a setting. A jungle moon filled with dark side filled temples is the perfect place to train Jedi._

 _Soo Lin Yao was a Togruta - for visuals that is the same race as Shaak Ti from II and III and Ahsoka Tano from The Clone Wars cartoons._

 _Henry Knight was a Miraluka, which is a race of near humans who don't have eyeballs and use the force to see. True story._

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	2. You Shot Me!

Sherlock came to consciousness in pieces. First was the cacophony of jungle birds, then the metallic taste of his mouth, then the ache in his head. His body felt oddly light, with a pressure around his ankle. He cracked one eye and then the other as he adjusted to the lambent light. He saw a moving jungle canopy above - why was he on his back?

Memory returned all at once and he gasped, flailing his limbs. The pressure on his ankle released and he fell heavily to the ground in a tangle of his own limbs.

After a brief quantity of deeply undignified flailing and getting caught in his robes, he pulled himself up and saw her. Molly Hooper.

"You shot me!"

"Well, it - it was on stun!" She eyed the ground, refusing to meet his indignant gaze.

"You shot me." For a moment he didn't know whether to be angry or impressed. He had been preparing himself to die. He had planned to charge into the academy grounds and kill as many enemies as he could manage, until he found either Victor or the traitorous little bastard who had sold them all out. The academy had been under attack, and it was his duty to defend it. He didn't know how long he'd been unconscious, but the battle must be over now. If Solo and his ilk had won, they'd be counting the dead soon and realizing they were short two bodies.

"Yes. I shot you." Now there was a note of impatience in her voice. Interesting, Molly was finding her spine. He realized then that the lightness he'd felt on waking must have been actual floating. She'd used telekinesis to keep him airborne and pulled him along behind her like a sled. Neat, less tracks, quicker that dragging him.

"We need to keep moving. Th-they'll come looking for us, but we can hide, out think them. They'll have to run before the rescue ships arrive." Molly held out a hand to help him up.

He chose to ignore it, shifting to a more comfortable seated position. "They'll have blocked communications to the academy so no one can call for help. It's what I would have done."

"Master Skywalker will know. He'll come."

"A great lot of good that did everyone else. Where are we?" He craned his neck, searching the area for familiar landmarks, but recognized nothing.

"About 10 clicks northwest of the academy. I hope it's northwest, anyway; I can be a bit rubbish at navigation. You've been out for about 45 minutes. Now let's get moving." She was speaking quickly but with a carefully matter-of-fact tone.

"You're afraid I'm going to leave again. You're trying for authoritative, affecting confidence to cover your deep-seated insecurity as well as your fear given our current situation. You are rather foolishly hoping I'll follow your lead. It won't work."

"Wh - you _are_ going to leave again?"

"No. Obviously not; don't be stupid. Not much point now, is there?" He sprang to his feet. "But I'm in charge, not you. Let's go, quickly now."

She blinked, momentarily dumbfounded. He used her confusion to his advantage, pushing past her to take the lead.

Now hopefully she'd tell him where they were going. It'd be rather embarrassing if he was forced to ask.

oOo

Sherlock was correct in his assumption - Molly had been heading to one of the nearby Massassi ruins. The Massassi had been enslaved by the Sith thousands of years ago and driven extinct. Most of their ruins, usually temple structures, had dark energy lingering inside, especially in the lower levels. None of the padawans were allowed to go to uninhabited ruins alone.

Yavin was a jungle planet, teeming with life. Even the best sensors wouldn't be able to pick human life signs out from the millions of other living things nearby. A Force sensitive (whether Jedi or Sith) would be able to find another force sensitive by their presence in the force. If they were powerful enough, they might even find Molly.

They had all heard Master Skywalker's stories of Master Yoda hiding on Dagoba, a planet so full of dark side that it could mask even Yoda's presence in the light side. Both knew the ruins were their best chance of evading the Sith. An unspoken truth lay heavy between them that Ben Solo would know this too.

Sherlock set a blistering pace, working hard not to ask the question at the forefront of his thoughts.

Half an hour passed in relative silence before Molly jogged up to keep pace with him. "Sherlock -"

"Molly, don't try to make conversation. It's really not your area," he interrupted bitingly.

"Sherlock," she began at greater volume, "I only thought you might want this back." She held her arm straight out to the side without looking at him. In her hand was a cylindrical object. "If you'd like to be the leader today."

He stared at her with open shock for a moment before snatching the object from her hand. "You _stole_ my lightsaber!? Why? Why would you…" he trailed off, eyes flicking rapidly back and forth. He grabbed her slim arm and wrenched them both to an abrupt stop, forcing her to face him. "You were going to shoot me again. If I woke up and I tried to go back, you were going to _shoot_ me! _Again!"_

"I've seen you deflect blasters before. I'm quite a good shot, but better safe than sorry."

Sherlock shook his head manically and resisted the urge to laugh. He knew if he let himself laugh, he wouldn't stop. Not ever, not until the world made sense again and he wouldn't hold his breath on that happening. "Why do you care? What could it possibly matter to you? You know as well as I do that with your skill set, you could hide in the jungle until the sun goes supernova and no one would ever find you! You should probably do that now, in point of fact. You certainly don't need me to protect you." He took a deep breath and realized he'd been nearly shouting. Stupid, stupid with enemies all around.

Molly stood where he'd put her, an inscrutable look on her face. "Sherlock Holmes, you were made for more than this. There have been more...more than enough heroic deaths today."

His resolve broke and he made the deduction he'd been sidestepping even in his own mind. "Your sleeve has blood on it. Fresh blood when I first saw you, human blood going by the color. Four humans at the academy with Skywalker gone; you are uninjured and it obviously isn't mine. Could be Miraluka blood, Henry's, they're near human, but he's not exceedingly brave or good at fighting. Could be Solo's, but what you saw at the academy was enough to convince you to flee and regardless of what I said earlier you are not a coward. Balance of probabilities suggests that the blood on your sleeve belongs to Victor Trevor." He made his deductions rapidly, quietly, and to Molly's left ear.

She squeezed her eyes shut. "I… Sherlock, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She put an arm into her tunic and withdrew a familiar lightsaber, holding it out to him.

She continued as he took it from her. "Henry's d-dead too. And Meena, and Dorsk, Anthea… so many more. I stole the blaster from a Stormtrooper, but I got back too late. And Ben was so… How could he do this? We were _friends_ once. I can't-" her words choked off on a sob and she turned away from him.

He knew she was crying and was vaguely aware that he ought to do something comforting. On a normal day he was bad at this sort of thing; today the most he could do was give her silence while she put herself back together.

To her credit, it took remarkably little time. She turned back, wiping her eyes on her non-bloody sleeve. "We need to keep moving. It's too easy to find us standing still like this."

He clutched Victor's lightsaber, squeezed until he could feel every ridge against his hand, until it began to cut into his skin. For a moment, the thought of finding Ben Solo and destroying him was all-consuming and filled him with a sort of blinding joy. "And what if I want to die heroically with - with everyone else? Isn't that my choice?"

She looked him in the eye for the first time all day. Her eyes were still filled with tears, but they were fierce and full of an emotion he couldn't name. Her mouth curved into a hard, joyless smile. "No. It really isn't."

Sherlock turned away, gut churning. He couldn't face the look in her eyes for another moment, though he couldn't have articulated why.

He unclipped his own lightsaber from its place on his belt and replaced it with Victor's, then strode to the nearest tree. "We're going to climb for awhile. If they're tracking us, it will throw them off. Take this." He threw his lightsaber and she caught it deftly. "You'll need it."


	3. Tarzan and Jane

_This is a short update - it didn't fit well with the next chapter so it's going up on it's own. Next one coming soon. Eternal thanks to lilsherlockian1975 for Beta-ing and generally being Awesome (capital 'A')!_

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They moved through the trees for long enough to confuse anyone who might be trailing them on foot. Sherlock detested it, not because he was incapable of climbing but because Molly was so much better at it than he was. All the awkwardness she displayed on the ground (at least when others were watching) disappeared in the trees. She jumped and swung like a bloody monkey, all lithe muscles and supple grace. It was annoying. She'd taken off her outer tunic and wrapped it into the back of her belt, tucking her long ponytail into the back of her shirt.

He'd done the same, tying his Jedi robe into a tall tree where it couldn't be seen from the ground. Sherlock experienced a few maudlin moments of wondering whether he'd ever wear one again, then cursed his uncharacteristic sentimentality.

He followed the path Molly made through the trees, conscious of the fact that he was slowing her down. As they jumped from branch to branch through the gigantic jungle trees, he allowed his thoughts to circle back to revenge. It would be remarkably satisfying to run Ben Solo through with Victor's lightsaber. Master Skywalker's voice echoed at the back of his head telling him that these were the pull of the dark side, but he couldn't will himself to heed it.

He signaled to Molly, then jumped to the ground. Any trail they'd made would have gone effectively cold, and speed was of the essence. Sherlock closed his eyes and attempted to reach out with the Force to determine whether they were being pursued. It slipped away from him. He exhaled and visualized pushing his rage away, putting it into a box. He inhaled, and his connection to the Force snapped into place. He could feel a large dark side presence ahead of them - that would be the Massassi ruins. There was Force all around in the multitude of flora and fauna around them. Dark side behind them, and far to the west. Any number of Sith could be waiting in the ruins, hidden just as they planned to. None nearby.

No Molly in the Force, though she was next to him and should have been easy to sense. It was this, coupled with her tendency to disappear from any social gathering featuring more than three people, that had caused Victor to start calling her the Ghost. The nickname had stuck, though it was a good-natured diminutive for the most part. Going by her reaction, Sherlock knew she was secretly quite proud of it.

Sherlock rattled off his observations, and they set off walking again at a fast clip. He could feel her staring at him with doe-eyed concern.

"I'm fine, Molly. Perhaps not for a moment there, but I've recovered myself."

"Sherlock, places like the ruins… they say it plays tricks on you, tempts you. Maybe we shouldn't-"

"If we don't, we die. Simple. You'll just have to keep me centered. You've always been good at that. You used to do it for…" _For Ben._ "Ah. At any rate, you're the best I've got."

The look on her face suggested that she was not reassured. At least she wasn't stuttering anymore.

After a brisk and silent walk, they arrived at the ruins, a stone pyramid which rose in steps. It was similar to the one they used as an academy, but in greater disrepair. One of the columns at the front had fallen, caving in a portion of the doorway. Jungle life had crept into the available space.

Sherlock unclipped his lightsaber and held it unlit in his hand. Ignited, it would be loud enough to announce their presence. Molly briefly squeezed his other hand, searching his face. Whatever she saw seemed to satisfy her. She swung her blaster rifle into her hands and nodded. They stepped into the darkness of the temple.


	4. Hide and Seek

_Thanks to everyone who has favorited, followed, or commented! It keeps me going. Thanks a million to LilSherlockian1975 for betaing even through computer issues._

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The day that Molly Hooper found out she was a Jedi was the best day of her life. She was thirteen and had a life that she supposed she couldn't complain about. She was fed and dressed and not mistreated. However, sometimes it didn't really feel like a life at all.

Molly's father had died two years ago. She knew her mother loved her, but Mum's method of grieving seemed to be keeping herself as busy as possible. Her parents were older than most; she had the impression she'd been a bit of a surprise. Now that Dad was gone, Molly couldn't help but feel like an imposition on her mother's carefully ordered life. She had learned to do most things for herself and just tried to stay out of the way. She'd always been closer to her father anyway.

Dad had always played fantastic games with her when he was alive - "Can you get all the way to the end of the road without anyone spotting you, little one?" or "Can you find me up in the trees?" They had taken Hide and Seek to new and inventive levels. Dad had taught her how to hide, how to make herself unremarkable in a crowd, and how to climb and swing in the tall olbio trees near their house.

Molly was a shy child, and her classmates were often cruel. Most of the friends she'd made in primary school had not gone to her secondary school, and she found herself frequently alone and lonely. Alone was better than being teased and bullied, so she'd put energy into staying that way. It hadn't been much of a leap from playing hiding games to actually hiding. In school she worked to fade into the background, slipping between other students in a sea of movement between classes too quickly for anyone to catch her. She disappeared at lunchtime to read in a disused storage cupboard (She'd "borrowed" a key from a custodian long enough to make a copy, then returned it while he was going to the bathroom. Another trick she'd learned from Dad's games.). After school, she would scurry outside as soon as the bell rang and climb a tree, high enough that she could hide in the leaves.

Her constant companion was the lizard creature who lived in the tree. Its talons were sunk into the tree, drawing the nutrients it needed to survive (and ensuring that she had a captive audience). She had named it Toby for the wizard's cat in her favorite book. It always seemed quieter in the tree, as if there were a constant buzzing in her ears that she only noticed once it was absent. She would lay in the sun-warmed branches reading until everyone, teachers and bullies alike, had left. No one was waiting for her at home anyway.

Until the day that someone was. A man with dark blonde hair, a kind face, and a brown robe had been sitting on her front porch as if he belonged there. His outfit seemed familiar- she knew she'd seen it in a book or in vids somewhere.

They stood calmly sizing each other up for several moments.

"Are you a Jedi?" she asked.

He smiled. "Are you?"

Luke Skywalker had come to Myrkr following a faint trace of a rumor that a Jedi had escaped here after the Clone Wars. She learned that the ysalamiri, lizard creatures like her friend Toby, repelled the force in bubbles around themselves. It was the reason her tree and her house had felt so peaceful; her home was surrounded by the olbio trees that the creatures made their homes in. Separated from the Force, she couldn't feel the thrum of life and echo of other's thoughts that had unknowingly followed her all her life.

Skywalker had never found the Jedi he'd been looking for, but he did find Molly. It had not been difficult to convince her mother to allow her to go to Yavin to train as a Jedi.

He collected another trainee on the way to the academy - a tiny Chadra-Fan woman with huge bat-like ears and the face of a rodent. Meena was already an adult, but was so deeply silly that she made Molly feel a wise old woman by comparison. The two were fast friends by the time they arrived at the academy. They were given a room to share and a friendship that was easier and more fun than any she had ever known.

Ben Solo was already at the academy when she arrived. He was two years her junior, the youngest person by far at the academy and painfully lonely. She knew what it was to be lonely, and felt an instant kinship with the boy. They had formed a friendship based in that shared understanding. She had always felt he was keeping something from her, but had supported him through his contrary moods nonetheless.

Henry Knight, a young Miralukan had arrived a year later with other padawans that Master Skywalker had sought out. He was awkward and shell shocked by the life he had led before arriving at the academy, near her own age. She found herself befriending him and helped him to understand the rhythm of life at the academy. She never pushed for details about what his life had been before Yavin, but eventually he had shared the burden of his memories. Molly realized she may have a tendency for "collecting" the lost and lonely.

It was a strange life, full of meditation, lightsaber practice, and bettering her unusual talents. No one else had shown interest or skill at Jedi concealment and deception, so many of her lessons were one-on-one with Master Skywalker.

It was strange, but it was hers. As far as she was concerned, it was positively brilliant.

And then Sherlock Holmes came to the academy. Two years her senior, Sherlock had been seventeen and was possibly the most beautiful person she'd ever seen up close. It wasn't his cheekbones or his ridiculously perfect hair or the fact that he wore Jedi robes the way a king might wear the finest silk. It wasn't even that he was breathtakingly intelligent (though watching him deduce fellow students to tears should probably not have been as erotic as she found it).

More than anything, it was the way his personality was so intense, so large that it shone out of him. His body seemed almost too small for everything that he was. He was somehow more alive than everyone else. She wouldn't have been surprised to learn he'd become Force-sensitive by sheer willpower. He reminded her of Master Skywalker a bit actually. As if someday you'd be sitting around in a pub, and you'd be proud to say you met him once.

Meena always said that Sherlock was like window shopping for fancy shoes - "Nice to look at and maybe even think about taking for a spin, Molly-Olly, but you wouldn't really want to own them. They'd pinch you." Then she would let out her squeaky bark of a laugh and remark on his appalling lack of ear hair. "Everyone knows that the length of a man's ear hair is directly proportional to how long his…" It was always at this point that Molly would tune out and try very hard to think about the Force.

She herself thought that Sherlock was a bit like a museum sculpture - just being near it was lovely and made you feel as if you were a small part of something bigger than yourself, but you shouldn't have any designs on bringing it home with you.

If sometimes late at night she thought about… well, about bringing him home with her… she would try very hard to have forgotten about those thoughts by morning.

Molly wished she could say they were friends, but friends actually talked to each other. They studied together frequently as they were learning many of the same skills, but they rarely discussed anything outside what they were learning. In addition to making her even more tongue-tied than normal, being near him forced her to focus on shielding her mind. Sherlock was quite adept at telepathy; it would be completely mortifying for him to pick up one of her more lascivious thoughts. Her telepathic skills had actually improved quite a bit as a consequence. She suspected Skywalker or Soo Lin would probably not want to know that the reason for her excellent mental shielding had to do with thinking about a fellow student while she was in the shower.

Victor would understand, though, and not just because he probably also thought about Sherlock Holmes in the shower. Victor would understand because he, better than any of the new Jedi, embraced imperfection and then let it go.

In the Old Republic, Jedi had been carefully selected and trained from infancy that attachment was the way of the dark side. At the new academy, Master Skywalker sought out and trained anyone with force ability regardless of their age or level of potential. Relationships were the least of his concern and she suspected (though he would never say so) that he wanted a new generation of Jedi babies far more than he cared about the risks.

Every year, he found more force-sensitives to study at the academy. Recently it had become well known enough that people had started showing up on their own for training as Sherlock had done. It had been all anyone could talk about at the time, as his brother was on the rise in the new government. He could have been anything with his gifts and social connections, but chose the Jedi academy. Molly had never followed galactic politics much, and had never heard of Mycroft Holmes, but he was apparently quite popular.

Ben disliked the older boy instantly; they'd been aware of each other in a general way as they both had family in government (even she wasn't so clueless as to be unaware of Leia Organa's position). Strangely, the more Molly grew to like the taller boy, the more her friend hated him.

The mutual animosity grew over the next three years. She'd felt Ben slip farther and farther from her, especially in the past few months.

The two had their own spot in the jungle where they'd sit on a large, flat-ish rock and often read from the same data pad. Heads together, long cinnamon colored hair would mix with black (always slightly greasy; he detested the showers on Yavin which could never compare to the Capitol worlds') while they read, warm in the sunshine. She patiently listened whenever he was upset, usually at his uncle for refusing to teach him the advanced Force skills that he felt he was ready for. It was a bit like having Toby back again but so much better, more like having a younger brother. It made her feel as if she had family again.

Lately though, he had refused to read with her, refused walks in the jungle (he would walk, she swung laughing through the trees and tossed palm fronds and nuts at him), and refused late night impromptu parties with Henry and Meena in her room. Last month had been Molly's 18th birthday. Meena had smuggled a bottle of Tagree, a bitingly strong form of alcohol from her homeworld, all the way to Yavin for the occasion. Ben had turned down her invitation to celebrate with them, though she knew he was doing nothing more taxing than brooding in his room.

She had hoped he had simply decided to get serious about his Jedi studies and was trying to eliminate worldly attachment. However she saw the way the Masters watched him, felt the turbulence within him, and worried.

She hadn't worried enough. Even Molly's nightmares could not have prepared her for today.

Today she had held Meena's small hand from under a table while watching her jerk and writhe, gasping for a breath that would never come. She had held eye contact with her dearest friend until there was nothing left behind round yellow eyes that had held so much mirth and warmth only this morning.

Today she had most likely killed a man for his gun. She waited until a trooper had walked out of sight from his unit and strangled him from behind until he stopped struggling. It turned out to have been completely pointless. Victor was dead when she got back. When she saw how outnumbered they were, she hid like a coward.

Today she watched Ben kill Henry. She could remember a time not so long ago when they'd all had a popcorn war and had found kernels in unlikely places for days. Telekinesis and very high speeds had been involved. Ben had caught the neck of his friend's shirt and dumped an entire bag into it; the popcorn had collected at the waist and made Henry look rather pregnant. They'd teased him for weeks.

Henry and Dorsk together had lasted less than five minutes fighting Ben and another of the helmeted Sith. Of the two opponents, Ben chose to fight his friend rather than Dorsk. Henry had never been a fighter - he'd been training to be a diplomat. He went down quickly.

It was then Molly remembered Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock, meditating in the jungle. Sherlock, probably on his way back to them now, alerted to death and danger but not to the extent of it.

Sherlock, who had always seemed more alive than everyone else and who she wasn't too late to keep that way. If she could save him, there would be a purpose to her still being alive when her friends were either dead or murderers.

So she shot him. She would shoot him a hundred times to keep him alive (Molly was distantly aware of how bizarre that sentiment was). Someday, she could sit in a pub and tell the story of saving the famous Sherlock Holmes.

But she wouldn't. If she survived (and that was a big if), she was never going to talk about this day again.


End file.
